


In The Hand

by lowflyingfruit



Series: The Art of Bird Metaphor [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23594440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingfruit/pseuds/lowflyingfruit
Summary: This has not been a good few weeks for the Wayne family. The Court of Owls have installed one of their own as Gotham's mayor. Jason might have survived his encounter with the Joker, but not unhurt. Bruce is struggling with the emotional fallout. Dick no longer trusts that his old Talon training is buried far enough for him to be Nightwing.That's never all. Then and now, the family has to know: what's the best way to deal with a child raised to be an assassin?
Series: The Art of Bird Metaphor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/858960
Comments: 112
Kudos: 323





	1. Fracture Lines

“I wish you would reconsider,” Kori said.

“Aren’t you happy with my tech support?” Dick asked.

She flipped her beautiful hair back over her shoulder and stared down at him with severe green eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it, Dick Grayson. Do not attempt to make this _my_ problem.”

They were having this conversation on the rooftop of their Titans HQ, sitting down on the edge of the rooftop, since they both liked the height and the breeze in their hair. Kori had practically kidnapped him. To be fair to her, he’d been avoiding private conversations for the last few weeks. He’d been in Gotham for most of it. From what he understood of the situation, Donna had decided to do something. Wally called it an intervention. _The brooding’s not healthy, my friend_ , he’d said, zipping round to cut off his escape route. Not all the way. _Kori gets first crack at talking it out with you. If not her…we’ll figure something else out._

So they’d talked. Just her being there, close enough to touch, helped a lot. He hadn’t been able to look at her as he described going back to being a Talon in his head that night in that warehouse, though. And it didn’t change his decision: he couldn’t be doing field work as Nightwing. “I was out of control,” he said.

“It was an extreme situation,” Kori countered. “You’ve seen us in danger before without losing yourself. You’ve seen Batman in danger without losing yourself.”

“I couldn’t bear it,” he said. “I _promised_.”

“You are better than you give yourself credit for.” She took his hand. She was very warm. “I know you. If you make a mistake, you will recover from it.”

“Kori…”

“I believe in you,” she said. “We all do. If you need time to believe in yourself again too, we’re not going to force you to do anything. But we want you to _get better_. Not - stew in your own juice.”

“Wally told you that phrase, didn’t he?”

“No. It was Donna. I like it.”

They sat like that a while longer. Dick wondered what Kori would say if he leaned against her shoulder. He wondered if she’d like it. Perhaps he should ask? Was it an acceptable thing _to_ ask? Before he could, _she_ leaned on _him._ She was quite a bit taller than he was, though, and he almost ended up with a mouthful of her hair. In spite of that, it was nice. They stayed like that until the sun set and Kori said she was getting cold.

“You will give it time?” she asked, as they headed for the door.

“Time,” Dick agreed. He didn’t expect time to change anything. He would still be what he was. The best way to deal with it would still be not to go out in the field and put others at risk. “All right. Time. I can do that.”

When they went back below, Donna said, “Sorry to spring that on you.”

Dick shrugged. If he’d wanted to leave, _really_ wanted toleave, they couldn’t have stopped him. More importantly, they wouldn’t have. “It’s fine,” Dick said. “Kori and I talked.” Like they wanted. They’d been right. Mostly right. It had helped some things.

“Dick is going to be tech support for us a while longer,” Kori said imperiously. Daring the others to defy her. Another thing they wouldn’t do if they thought either of them was serious.

“That’s what you want?” Donna asked Dick.

He nodded. “I promised to give it some time. I’m not ready to go back to the field yet.” Or ever. But it would be fine. He was good tech support too. Donna was as good a field leader as he was, or better. The Titans would be fine.

His friends looked at each other. Wally said, “So. Volleyball?”

Volleyball was also a fun game. Dick stayed for another hour, then excused himself. He had things he wanted to do back in Gotham. Before everything, he’d been considering moving out more permanently. Now…

Things were a little different.

He heard them before he saw them. It happened a lot these past few weeks. Dick was tempted to flee to the ceiling. Or the rooftop. Somewhere he didn’t have to deal with the _anger_.

“You’re just not getting it through your thick head! Tim is my _friend_!”

“A friend who -“

He’d come back for the start of the argument. Jason insisted Tim Drake had never meant for any of it to happen, Bruce insisted Drake was reckless and manipulative, and from there it got worse. Personal. The same thing again and again. Dick just wanted them to stop shouting so Jason could focus on getting better. He’d been in the hospital so long. Out of school, out of the cave. Away from the things he enjoyed. Away from _home_.

When Dick rounded the corner, smile firmly in place, the first thing he noticed was that Jason was in his wheelchair. A bad sign. He hated the wheelchair and didn’t use it unless he was made to. He was made to quite often, because he pushed himself in physiotherapy. Hard as he could. If he was in the wheelchair now, that meant he’d be tired, in pain again, and cranky.

As for Bruce, these days, Bruce was angry most of the time, no matter what.

But they both stopped arguing when they saw him. That was something. “Dick,” Bruce greeted him. “Good to see you back.”

“We played volleyball,” Dick said brightly as he could. Jason scowled, but Dick knew from experience that he would scowl more if Dick tried to pretend he hadn’t done any of those active things which Jason couldn’t right now. Or maybe ever again. Dick didn't know how to handle it. Say something and bring it to Jason's attention that he couldn't do those things, don't say anything and bring it to Jason's attention that people were treating him differently now. No matter what Dick did, Jason got hurt.

“I’m going back to the pool,” Jason announced, and wheeled himself off.

Bruce opened his mouth. Probably to say that Jason shouldn’t do any more exercise today. Dick glared at him. Bruce thought better of it. That was good. Dick hated hearing them shout at each other. “What was it this time?” Dick asked.

“School,” Bruce said. “I don’t think he’ll be going back this year. Jason disagrees. Not because he wants to go to school, per se, but because he wants to…maintain his friendship.”

So that was how the fight had started. Very predictable.

Just as Bruce had decided not to say anything more to Jason, Dick decided to say nothing more to Bruce on this. Tim wasn’t so bad. He was brave and clever (except for the part where Jason said he snuck out at night by himself without any training or equipment, that wasn’t so clever) and he’d helped save Jason as much as he could. Dick just had to trust that eventually Bruce would see that too. “I’ll make sure Robin’s okay,” Dick said.

Bruce deflated a little, the anger visibly leaving him. “Thank you,” he said. “I may be gone when you get back.”

“I was planning to stay in the cave,” Dick said.

“Very well,” Bruce said. “Make sure Jason eats something and rests properly.”

It was his way of saying he felt bad about the argument. Dick knew that. But he didn’t _change_ what he did. Bruce was stubborn like that.

—

The pool was a very different room to the one it had been a few weeks ago. It had originally been designed for entertainment, flat and open, with broad steps leading out of the pool. Now there were shining steel rails everywhere Jason might possibly need or want a handhold.

Jason had struggled into his bathing suit by himself and was just lowering himself into the water when Dick arrived. The surgical scars stood out on his legs, arms and shoulder in bright, raw pink. Healed, now, but still fresh. Dick had scars in straight lines a bit like that, from when the Court had disciplined him. He knew from experience that over time neat cuts from sharp knives healed fairly well. They weren’t the problem.

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked.

“Checking up on you,” Dick said. He sat down well back from the edge of the pool. Not helping. Not even hovering. Just keeping him company.

“What would _help_ is you going back to Nightwing,” Jason snapped, lowering himself into the water. “Or Bruce taking his head out of his ass. Either will do.”

Bruce wasn’t the only one who was angry a lot these days. Now _Dick_ was the one who didn’t want to have the argument. Instead he watched Jason paddle around. Swimming was exercise the physiotherapist recommended, since it kept Jason’s weight off his healing body while he built up his strength. The only problem was that Jason didn’t know how to swim. Or he hadn’t when he started. He’d been learning. Fast.

It was hard to see Jason struggle to rotate his left shoulder all the way. Hard to see the lack of power behind his kicks, the way his right knee didn’t, couldn’t, bend much, the stiffness in his limbs. If he’d been even a little faster - if he’d stopped even one more hit -

No use to that thinking. He’d done what he could. The only thing he regretted was losing control. It had to be harder for Jason to go through, and so he didn’t say anything about it. Jason would not appreciate it.

After only a few minutes, Jason stopped and returned to the edge. “Throw me a towel, will you?” he asked. Dick obliged and watched Jason struggle to haul himself out of the pool and dry himself, leaning on the newly-installed rails to keep his balance. He had to. He still couldn’t stand unassisted. The way he shifted his weight to compensate for his injuries and tested each movement was starting to look a bit more practiced. “So. Volleyball? That’s it?”

Dick smiled. He didn’t want to bother Jason with his problems. “And a bit of technical support. That’s it. I’m not going to stop being friends with them just because I quit.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Jason said.

“You’ve told me,” Dick replied. “Bruce said to make sure you ate something.”

Jason snorted. “As if I’d pass up Alf’s cooking after a few weeks of hospital food. Fine. _If_ you get your ass to the cave and start working.”

“I haven’t eaten yet either,” he said. “We’ll both eat and then I’ll go downstairs.”

“Seems fair,” Jason nodded. “But no pushing. I can handle my own fucking wheelchair.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Dick said. Which was true. It was Jason’s wheelchair and Jason hated not being able to get around by himself. Dick already knew that.

Fortunately for Jason, there were already elevators in Wayne Manor. They’d been installed when Bruce was a child, something his parents had arranged for. So they were old despite regular servicing, but someone in a wheelchair could get between floors with only a detour. Not that it had stopped Bruce going and making sure the entire rest of the manor had handrails wherever they might be needed. He’d installed the rails to the cave stairs himself. Jason scowled at them sometimes, but they all knew that he did, and would, need them. Changes in air pressure and colder weather both made Jason’s injuries hurt more, and winter was coming on.

Alfred was tense and tired (he’d had his own hands full with the fighting and the problems and the installations in the manor) but he still had dinner ready. Dick didn’t know about Jason, but food made _him_ feel better. “Going to come downstairs with me?” he asked, once they’d finished their meal.

“Nope,” Jason said. “Me and Tim are doing stuff.”

“Okay,” Dick said simply. It wasn’t his job to stop Jason meeting Tim either. It was nevertheless a lonely trip downstairs, when it used to be all four of them.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he almost stopped dead in his tracks. There was someone else in the cave. There was an echo where there shouldn’t be an echo. Just a small one. Anywhere else, he might not have noticed it, but he _knew_ the cave. Every corner.

So instead of stopping, he carried on. Anyone trying to ambush him would be in for a surprise. He knew how to deal with someone who came for his back.

Whoever was hiding wasn’t familiar with the cave’s acoustics. They were good at sneaking around. They just hadn’t compensated properly for the space. He walked straight to the middle of the cave as if he hadn’t heard anything and presented his back for a clear shot.

There was another slight echo of movement, and then someone attacked from not quite the angle he was expecting. A lower angle. Dick whipped around fast enough to deter the strike at his kidneys.

He faltered when he saw he was being attacked by a child. Only a little bigger than he himself must have been when the Court took him, and dressed all in black. That was all it took for Dick to take this seriously. He’d been a lethal threat when he was that size. He couldn’t afford to take it easy on his opponent just because that opponent was a child. It wasn’t often he was the _larger_ combatant in a fight, though. He struck back as hard as he dared and send the child flying.

The small figure twisted in the air and recovered their footing. Not the way the Court taught recovery. So it wasn’t the new Talon come to eliminate the old. Who was teaching children that small and young to fight like that, then? The child launched into an immediate counterattack, aiming at Dick’s legs and trying to immobilise him. A good tactic, but Dick was an adult. He was faster, stronger, and more experienced. He grabbed the child’s wrists and held them together, forcing their legs out from under them and twisting around to pin them.

“Alfred,” he called. The cave’s alert systems would pick it up. “Alfred, there’s an intruder in the cave.”

Sure enough, the answer came back within seconds. “ _What_?” Surprise made Alfred’s tone unusually harsh. “I’ll be right down, of course.”

Beneath him, the child made a _tt!_ sound. A boy, it seemed. “What’s your name?” Dick asked.

“None of your affair, pretender,” the boy said.

“You know who I am?” He frowned to himself. “You have to. This isn’t somewhere you can break into without preparations. Next question. Why did you come here?”

“Also none of your affair, pretender,” the boy said. He was very bossy for someone pinned to the ground.

“I’m not pretending anything,” Dick said. Child or not, if the boy came here to hurt Jason, he would regret it. “If you know my name, you should use it. It’s polite. And you should introduce yourself too.”

“I will not,” he said. “I will introduce myself on my feet or not at all.”

Dick frowned. What difference did that make? “I can’t let you up yet,” he said. “You’re very good at fighting.”

“Naturally,” he replied. “My teachers were far better than the second-rate cultists you call the Court of Owls.”

“Second-rate cultists,” Dick repeated. On the one hand, the Court was…bigger than that. Whatever this boy thought. What they could do was scarier than he gave them credit for. On the other hand, if the worst happened and the Court did take him back, he definitely wanted to call them second-rate cultists before they started hurting him again. “I like it,” he decided.

That, of all things, actually seemed to make the boy angry. Or some emotion otherthan superior, anyway. “You’re not supposed to like it!” he snapped.

“Why would I mind?” he asked, genuinely curious. “I didn’t train with the Court because I chose to. I don’t owe them. I don’t like them. So why would I mind?”

From behind him, Alfred said, “I take it our young guest is aware of several pertinent facts, then?”

“He hasn’t introduced himself and he keeps calling me ‘pretender’,” Dick said. “He was serious when he attacked me.”

“I see.” Dick heard the click of handcuffs, but Alfred didn’t get any closer.

Dick wasn’t uneasy about restraining a child. Like he’d said, the boy was serious when he’d attacked. Bruce had restrained him, the first time they’d met, and it had been the right decision. “Pass those here,” Dick said. He might be a child, but he could still be very dangerous.

Alfred sighed, but passed the cuffs anyway. Dick shifted his weight, shifted his grip, and secured his prisoner, hands behind his back. Not that he intended to relax any; if the boy was good enough to get in here, he might well be good enough to get out of any restraints. Dick did not intend to be taken by surprise. No more than Alfred would. Jason was upstairs and as little as any of them liked it, he was in no shape to fight back or run away.

He edged around to at least see his attacker’s face. Masked. Sort of. Cloth only, pulled up to hide the boy’s features. Dick tugged it down.

“My goodness me,” Alfred said.

The face beneath was very young, maybe seven or so, but familiar. Dick couldn’t place why, at first. Between the baby fat and the scowl, he was reminded more of Jason than anyone. Then he worked out the shape of the jaw and the line of the nose. “Oh,” he said, putting it together. “You look like Bruce.”

“I am his son,” the boy said, drawing himself up impressively for someone stilll cuffed. “You are a pretender.”

“You keep saying it. I’m not pretending anything.” He wondered if the boy knew what it meant, or if he was copying the word from an adult.

“You are a pretender. You and the other one. The cripple.”

That made Dick angry. Not for him, for Jason. He was allowed to be angry. He didn’t know how he should show that with a child, though. Children could be dangerous, but they could be hurt more easily than adults, too.

“If I may, young man,” Alfred interrupted, “Could I inquire as to the identity of your mother?”

The boy lifted a stubborn chin. That was definitely familiar. “I am the son of Talia al Ghul,” he said with obvious pride.

He’d heard the name _al Ghul_ before. Not recently.Not often. But he’d heard it. From Bruce too, he thought. Dick turned to Alfred to see what he made of it. Something, from the look on his face. It wasn’t often anyone _caught_ Alfred with a look of disdain on his face. “Alfred?” Dick asked.

“I’ve never met the lady in person,” Alfred said. “But from my recollection, our young guest’s story has a level of…plausibility.”

Dick looked at the boy. His chin was still held high, but there was just a bit of uncertainty in how he looked at Alfred now. And when Dick looked at Alfred. “You don’t -“ like her? Approve of her? He wasn’t at all sure how to describe the quickly-hidden expression.

“A topic best not discussed in front of our guest,” Alfred said smoothly. “Now, Master Dick, I think it is well past time to inform Master Bruce that he is required at home.”


	2. Granite and Lime

_Seven years ago…_

Sewers. Bruce hated sewers. They were claustrophobic. Confusingly laid out. The footing was invariably poor. His cape always ended up soaked in filth no matter what waterproofing he used. And they reeked. If Batman had a choice he’d never come down here.

In this case, he had no choice.

Killer Croc had snapped his grappling hook and run off with most of his spare line. He dearly wished he had the time to return to the cave and re-equip. But Killer Croc was lurking down here somewhere, the trail was still relatively fresh, there were six wounded civilians up above (and one dead one), and so Batman had to follow.

That trail was at least clear, to a point. First it had been blood, now it was footprints. Now he was losing track in the slime. As far as he could tell he was no closer to Croc. He couldn’t even get a signal off the tracker he’d managed to plant on him. What that meant, it was hard to say - it could have shorted out in the water, or there might just not be reception here. Follow he did, for an hour. The trail at last went cold.

All in all, it was time to call it a night. Not one of his more successful nights. Batman turned, boots slipping ever so slightly. He put a hand out to steady himself -

\- and felt the wall give, ever so slightly.

It wasn’t a wall, Batman realised, focusing his night vision lenses on the spot. It was a door. A well-hidden door. He frowned; he had the plans of the sewers, and there wasn’t supposed to be a door down here.

That was a mystery. Bruce was very bad at resisting mysteries. If there was a mystery door down here, he was going to go through it. A few minutes of examination showed that while it was a door clearly not opened often, it was in a useable condition. There was electronic security on it but nothing he couldn’t handle. He was through within minutes.

Behind the door smelled considerably less like sewer, for which Bruce was grateful. Stone floor, again, not often used. He turned to examine the other side of the door, which was emblazoned with a stylised owl. Its eyes had been crafted with particular care. He could almost feel its gaze on his back.

The old rhyme came to him. _Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time…_

Unsettling. He ignored it and pressed on. It was all too clear that this door and tunnel did not come to be here by accident. There had to be something at the end.

It wasn’t a long walk. Within minutes he found a second door, sturdier than the last. Its security measures gave way too, and as Batman slipped through, it shut behind him with an ominous thunk. There was a keypad by the door, though. A way to get out again.

In front of him were blank white walls, a small gap opening some distance to his left, fifteen feet high or so. The ceiling was higher still, but the unbearably bright lights were mounted on the tops of the walls, blinding anyone on the ground looking up. The air was cool and clammy, but it didn’t feel stale, and the sound of his footsteps echoed. A large space, then, Batman thought, rounding the wall.

Then he realised that it wasn’t just a large space, but a large _maze_.

There was an argument to be made for turning back. Soon it would be light outside. He hadn’t anticipated finding anything like this and he could be better prepared. He already had broken equipment. Yet at the same time, he had breached the security of this facility, and in his experience, these facilities were rarely built for purposes other than the nefarious. If he came back later, chances were good that _they_ would be better prepared for _him_. Weariness and surprise or no, it was better to press on.

At least it wasn’t a sewer.

At first he kept track of the turns well enough. But it was a well-designed maze, the walls plain and uniform. Not far in, he realised he could hear running water of some sort, confusing his footsteps. Eventually the constant noise and plain walls started to do their job. He got lost. The lights beating down became oppressive. It was well past dawn now, it must be. He was supposed to call Talia at some poin today. He’d underestimated the builders of this place. The people who’d put the Owl symbol on the door.

The thoughts kept surfacing in his mind, a bubbling undercurrent to the need to escape: what was this place here for? He had stumbled on it by the most unlikely of circumstances. Were people brought here? Why? Just for torture?

Eventually he came to an open space. The centre of the maze, it looked like. There was a fountain here, the source of the incessant water sounds. Bruce was so thirsty. He could hardly wait to run the most basic field test for impurities. When at last his analyser beeped, the water registered as unsafe to drink. Detailing why was beyond the tiny device’s capabilities. It could be lethal, for all he knew.

He could go a few more hours without water. It wouldn’t be easy, and it definitely wouldn’t be fun, but he could do it. Reluctantly, he turned away and back into the maze.

The knife flashing past his eyes was something of a shock. Batman leapt backwards, scanning his surroundings for whoever had thrown it.

A second flash of reflected light. He brought his cape up. The reinforced fabric was enough to deflect the second knife. He kept moving. His attacker had to be above him, the lights that blinded Bruce from below making him a sitting duck from above. A third knife clicked off the armour around his right calf, worryingly close to the gap that allowed him to bend his knee.

Bruce dodged two more knives in quick succession, straining his ears for any sign of his opponent. Nothing…nothing…a brush of fabric! He leapt, quickly as he could, up and into the shadows. He might only get one chance at this. With this many knives thrown, surely his attacker would be considering a retreat in order to restock.

His lunge connected. His fingers closed around a limb, arm or leg he couldn’t tell, and he _pulled_. There was less weight to his attacker than he thought, and in the shock of that realisation his opponent curled up and lashed out with yet another knife, this one longer and thicker. Bruce caught it on a gauntlet and wrenched it away, dragging the small, masked, black-clad figure into the light.

And small was definitely the first word that came to mind. All muscle, fighting hard, but surely this could not even be a grown woman. Bruce had been fighting a child. He felt sick. He pinned the child down anyway - the child went still - and yanked the mask off.

Beneath was a familiar face.

Bruce couldn’t quite place it, but he was sure that he’d seen the boy before. From a missing persons case, perhaps. Dull, wary blue eyes. Black hair. Pale skin, but with a tone that suggested that even a hint of sunlight would turn it a deep tan. The boy’s features were regular, with a bit of the odd sharpness and hollowness that was probably a combination of puberty and…whatever hell he was being put through here. “Can I trust you not to try and stab me?” he asked.

Nothing. For a long moment, full of the echoes of running water, nothing. The boy’s expression did not change, until he gave Bruce the tiniest nod. Bruce released the boy’s arms with relief. He did not, however, relinquish the pin entirely. He couldn’t afford to let the boy run off. Nor did he entirely trust the boy not to try to stab him again, and held himself in readiness for the attempt. Now more than ever, he had to survive and make sure the GCPD found this place.

“Do you know where we are?”

No response. Just a steady, cautious gaze. In spite of that, Bruce could see the vein in his neck fluttering. He wondered how long it had taken the boy to learn how to hide his fear so well. How long it had taken to _make_ the boy learn.

“Is there a way out?” Bruce asked. Again, no response, but the boy’s eyes flickered upwards. Bruce doubted that he could help himself. Not many people could. Escape was above them, then. Sheer as the walls were, Bruce would just have to get up them. There had to be a way, no matter how difficult.

He had to take the boy, too. He couldn’t leave him here. His training, his equipment, his demeanour - it pointed to someone or a group of someones keeping him here, training him for who knew what. Nothing good. _Beware the Court of Owls…speak not a whispered word of them…_

Moving carefully, not intending to give the boy openings in which to attack, he handcuffed the boy, arms behind his back. Not ideal. The boy could hardly be in his teens. Working with the snapped remains of his grappling line, he fashioned a crude hobble for the boy too, which was even worse. “I won’t do anything more than this,” Bruce promised as he worked. “Not unless you attack me first.”

Blankness. Careful, rigid blankness. Bruce doubted it concealed trust in his word.

Now to get on top of the walls. Unfortunately, the boy didn’t have the gear to climb the walls either. Bruce suspected a training method at work. Or a method of punishment. Fall, and be trapped in the maze. The line between training and punishment might be very thin indeed. “Is there any _other_ way out?” Bruce asked. He thought about it, and added, “This is the best way to trap me. That might make up for losing the fight.”

Whatever guilt he felt about using the boy’s fear against him, he buried it. The danger here was real. The prospect of being led into a secondary trap was not just a remote possibility.

Again, the boy nodded. He did not move.

“Walk next to me,” Bruce said. Neither of them could trust the other at their back. He wasn’t going to insult his companion by pretending that either of them could. The boy moved to do so. “Let me know whether to go left or right at the turns.”

Together, they set off through the maze. Bruce let the boy take a one-step lead and followed him at the branching paths. After the third, Bruce asked, “What’s your name?”

The boy froze, the sudden stop in the restraints nearly sending him headfirst into a wall. When he collected himself, he said, in voice rusty from disuse, “I am Talon.”

_Or they’ll send the Talon for your head._ Bruce felt ill. The sort of ill that went right to the soul. On top of being tired and thirsty. The monster from the rhyme was an tortured child, locked in a maze. He asked, “How long have you been here?”

The boy - Bruce was _not_ going to think of him as Talon - darted a glance up at him. Now that he’d said one thing and the sky hadn’t fallen on him (or, more likely, now that he’d said one thing and none of his captors had appeared from the woodwork to punish him), he looked a little less hesitant to speak again. “A long time,” he said. “Years.”

“But you weren’t born here.” They kidnapped him. Whoever _they_ were. Children went missing in Gotham every day, and the police only ever found a fraction of them. What was one more? “Where did you live before this?”

Once again there was a pause, but this time, the boy said nothing. His blue eyes widened with either shock or fear. ”I don’t know,” he said.

“Do you know how old you were when you were brought here?”

Instead of responding, the boy jumped, kicked off the wall, and drove his legs towards Bruce’s lower belly. But Bruce had been waiting for something like that. He ducked aside, the boy’s heels grazing his cape. Despite the hobble and the miss, the boy turned a hard landing into a roll away and another charge, again aiming for Bruce’s centre of gravity. Smart fighting, and incredible agility, but not enough to overcome Bruce’s experience, size, and preparedness. He didn’t have time to think, much less to regret striking a child, only to strike back. He slammed the boy to the ground. The sound it made was sickening, though he didn’t hear the crunch of bone at least. “Don’t try that again,” Bruce warned.

The boy picked himself up unassisted. For a second he curled around his injured side, but straightened within a second, not a trace of pain in his expression. Something learned hard, no doubt. The boy said, “I was about this tall.” Since his hands were bound, he dipped his shoulder to a point on the wall to indicate the height, which was not very high. It was not a good method of putting an age to the boy, but made it plenty clear that he had been very young when brought to this place.

For the boy’s sake, Bruce hoped he’d been a short child. “Keep leading,” Bruce said. “We’ll _both_ leave.”

The boy stiffened. His eyes slid back to Bruce, then darted forward. He led down the straight hall, and paused at a fork.

“We can both leave,” Bruce repeated, as the boy hesitated, clearly torn between leading Bruce back into the maze or out altogether. “I can find out your name. Your parents.”

“Dead,” the boy replied. “I know - parents are dead. I saw. They fell.”

“Any other relatives, then,” Bruce said, wincing internally. “This isn’t right.”

“I am Talon,” the boy said. His voice was unsteady. He turned left, and Bruce hoped that left meant out. At the next corner he hesitated less, though he started to look up and around.

Hope fluttered in Bruce’s chest. It was sick, given that his hope was based in a child’s fear, but he hoped that the boy was afraid because he was taking them to the exit. Ten minutes passed as they walked through the blank, white, over-lit maze. Then twenty. Then the last stretch of the maze came in view, door at the end, where Bruce had entered in the first place. He could see the keypad.

The boy froze for a second, then kicked out at Bruce’s knees. Not very effectively. He was still restrained, and his movements were different. Panicked. The prospect of actually leaving seemed to have overwhelmed him.

Bruce knocked him down again. It was harder again to hit back. This was a _child_. He was frightened. But first and foremost, Bruce had to get him away from this place. He couldn’t let anyone stop him, not even the boy himself. “Stay there,” he said.

This time, the boy stayed down. Bruce needed him to. He had to get through this keypad. The faster the better, because if anyone was watching, surely they would have realised that Bruce was taking this so-called Talon from them. The boy’s panic was contagious. He kept his head. He had to.

The door swung open after a minute of work without so much as a beep. There was, however, a creak from rarely-used hinges.

The boy wouldn’t get back up again. Bruce dragged his dead weight. A compromise, Bruce thought - he wasn’t fighting Bruce’s attempts to rescue him, but nor could his kidnappers accuse him of fighting to leave. Bruce thought it was unlikely that the kidnappers - the Court of Owls, it had to be - would see anything less than his defeat of Bruce as worthy of punishment, so in the grander scheme of things, the boy’s passivity was actually rather brave of him.

No pursuit yet. He hadn’t raised any further alarms by hacking through the inner door. The outer was the same story. He dragged the boy back through the sewers, accumulating another layer of filth. Outside the sun was well and truly up, though there were always shadows to hide in. He called the car to them and kept an eye on the boy as he stared up at the sky. He wondered how long it had been since the boy had been outside. Too long, if that wide-eyed look up was any guide.

From freedom to another unpleasant small space. The sewer stench was even worse in the enclosed environment of the car, no matter how he ran the air conditioning. Freed from the restraints, the boy tried to huddle in on himself against the chill and plaster himself to the window to look up at the sky, both at once.

He set the car to self-driving mode and sipped away at a bottle of sports drink steadily. No food in here, or he would have offered it to the boy. When his throat felt as though it was no longer coated in razor blades, he called Alfred.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Alfred said. “I was growing quite concerned. I have made your excuses for the day, of course.”

“Thanks, Alfred,” Bruce said. “There’s been…a complication.”

“Oh?” Alfred asked cautiously. “Is it like the complication with the giant penny?”

“No,” Bruce said. The giant penny was _evidence_. He had to take it. “Can you start looking through the missing persons database? I’ll send you the description.”

Male. Black hair. Blue eyes. Somewhere between five and ten years of age when he vanished, missing for somewhere between four and nine years. Orphaned.

There was little else to go on. From the little he’d said, the boy had a Gotham accent, and an upper-class one at that. Probably copied from whoever trained him. His ethnicity was unclear. The boy couldn’t seem to tell him anything more about his past either. Bruce and Alfred were going to have to find out who he was the hard way.

And then…who knew what then.

Bruce turned his mind to the problem, glancing at the child who didn’t even notice, so absorbed was he in staring upwards at the sky. If his parents were dead, how would the foster system deal with a child so traumatised? Not to mention the violence he’d been schooled in. What happened when the boy made a mistake, as he inevitably would, trying to readjust to a normal life? From one prison to another, surely.

It was a problem he’d have to think about.

After they’d all cleaned up, that was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much everyone for your response! Next chapter will be up in two weeks (it's mostly done, but I'm trying to get a decent buffer for steadier updates).


	3. The Problems of Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning here, there's going to be some ableist language thrown around by characters, including slurs.

“There is a young man in the cave claiming to be the son of Talia al Ghul,” Alfred said.

Mind half on the clues the Riddler had been leaving around the Gotham Museum, Bruce said, “What?”

“A young man in the cave,” Alfred said patiently. “Boy, really. Claiming to be Talia al Ghul’s son. I must say, he bears a remarkable resemblance to yourself.”

What?

Talia. Child. Who looked like Bruce.

He didn’t start sprinting back to the car, but the temptation was there. “I’m on my way back. Tell me everything,” he said.

Alfred repeated the events as he had seen them. Bruce was appalled. It was bad enough that someone had broken in (though if anyone could bypass his security, it would be the al Ghuls, especially someone who’d learned from Talia). It was worse that this child had made his presence known by _attacking Dick_.

…though again, perhaps not completely unexpected from someone who’d learned from Talia.

Damn it. Why did this have to happen when he was clear across the city? “I’ll be there in half an hour,” Bruce said, when Alfred had finished his recount.

“I have the DNA test in progress,” Alfred said. “He consented to that much, at least.”

“Does he have a name?” Bruce asked.

“It seems probable,” Alfred replied, “but he has refused to give it to underlings and pretenders before his father.” The acid in his tone couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. Well. He knew why Bruce had ended that relationship. Alfred might forgive - something that was not assured in the slightest, especially not to non-family members - but he did not forget.

Underlings and pretenders. Bruce could feel a headache coming on. Aside from the vague pounding of his heart. Another son? One he hadn’t prepared for, hadn’t _chosen_? And who apparently was already slighting Bruce’s elder sons. Or attacking outright.

“I see,” he said. He reached the car and jumped inside. “How old is he?”

“Seven, perhaps.”

He took a corner more sharply than he ought. The tires screeched their protest. “You left him with _Dick_?” Dick was as good with people as might reasonably be expected, given his childhood. Every year that passed he got friendlier and more outgoing. But there were things he just didn’t know about other people. Experience with young children was something he hadn’t had much of. Unless Dick hadn’t told him about relevant misadventures with the Titans. He’d certainly struggled with Jason at first.

“Master Dick will not allow our guest to hurt him physically, nor will he hurt our guest,” Alfred said. “Honestly, Master Bruce, the situation decided itself once our guest introduced himself by attacking Master Dick.”

Alfred was right, of course. There was no way on earth Dick would let a threat to Alfred or Jason out of his sight. It didn’t matter if the threat seemed to be about seven years old. “I see,” Bruce said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As soon as he could seemed to take forever. The roads stretched out. He didn’t live _that_ far out of Gotham, did he?

—

His limbs burned, but that was nothing new. It definitely was nothing new these days. Jason forced himself to remain upright in his _stupid_ wheelchair, in front of his computer. “Same problem,” he said grimly into his headset. “There’s only so much we can do online.”

“We can do a lot online,” Tim countered. “Some things we can only do online.”

“I don’t think either of us would argue otherwise,” said Jason, who was all too aware that he was never going to be a field vigilante, even if he wanted to. He had to take some things as he found them. “I’m just saying that there are places where you _need_ someone out there physically investigating specific stuff. You can’t just piggyback on other people’s investigations the whole way.”

Tim sighed. Over the headset, it had a little bit of static to it. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about Nightwing -“

“I haven’t,” Jason said. “I’m not asking his friends, either, they’d just tell him about what we’re planning. Even the sensible ones.”

There was a long silence. Tim tapped at his keyboard in the background. “I could go out again,” he said at last.

“Ha. I’m opposed. I don’t think _I_ could handle it.” As much as he wanted to help Dick, he couldn’t stand it if Tim got hurt trying to help them both. Wasn’t like Jason could go bail him out under these circumstances. Or ever. Not physically.

A few weeks into living like this and Jason already _hated_ it.

“Any ideas, then?” Tim asked. “You know, I’m not the only one who goes out there looking for photographs. I could give people a few tips -“

“The Grey Ghost,” Jason said suddenly. He hadn’t seen her in action, but he knew of her. She was still out there. If she managed to keep up with Dick okay -

“You sure?” Tim asked. “She’s…not Nightwing’s biggest fan.”

He frowned. In the corner of his screen, Tim frowned back. “Why? I know they were working together for a bit. They were the ones who worked out the Court got someone elected mayor in the first place.”

Tim hesitated. “I don’t know what she saw, exactly,” he said, “but whatever it was, she doesn’t want anything to do with Nightwing or Batman. I don’t think she approves.”

“Approves of _what_?”

“Nightwing fighting on the streets. I think she might have worked it out. What he - was.”

Jason’s frown turned into a scowl. He scowled so hard he felt the tension in his healing collarbone. He’d told Tim that bit of information himself, and Tim had only nodded. _That explains a few things_ , he’d said. That was it. “Well then she should get over it,” he said, maybe a bit hotly. “The closest Nightwing ever got to killing someone while in costume was the Joker, and honestly, who fucking cares -“

“Ahem,” Alfred said from the doorway.

If Jason was trying to keep his Owl-destroying plans on the down low from Bruce and Dick (because they would try to stop him), he hadn’t even bothered trying to hide it from Alfred. Not only was Alfred omniscient, or as good as, letting Alfred know was the best way to _stop_ Bruce and Dick from finding out (and therefore attempting to stop him). “Sorry for the swearing, Alfred,” Jason said.

“Quite all right,” Alfred said serenely. There was a certain glint in his eye that Jason interpreted as Alfred not giving a fuck whether the Joker lived or died either. Far less of a fuck than he gave about Jason using crude language, anyway. “I apologise for interrupting your call, Master Jason, but there is something going on downstairs that you ought to be a part of. Master Timothy, my apologies to you as well, but this is rather time-sensitive and important.”

“Okay then. Sorry, Tim, we’ll do this another time.” With a nod from his friend, he shut off the call. “What’s this about?”

“We have a rather unexpected visitor in the cave,” Alfred said. He looked Jason over, still sitting up straight in his wheelchair. “My foremost concern right now is your health, of course, but if you could manage to come downstairs on your crutches…a first impression might be made that could avoid trouble later.”

The crutches weren’t far away. They weren’t the ones he’d seen other kids use from time to time, resting under the armpit, but the forearm kind. The kind that people who needed crutches all the time used. He hated them too, but less than the chair, because he could at least stand upright-ish. He’d been _grateful_ when the doctors said his arms were healed enough for him to start learning how to use the crutches, and that made him angry as well.

Jason tried to lever himself up out of the chair. It felt like every bone the Joker had broken and the various muscles around them protested the movement, his knee worst of all.

It was the end of the day, and a damp, cold night. He’d worked hard in physiotherapy. Of course he hurt all over. He _would_ use the crutches more than the wheelchair, and orthotics where he could. Eventually.

“Not tonight,” Alfred said, so Jason didn’t have to admit defeat. “Very well. No great matter.”

“What’s this about, anyway?” Jason asked, wheeling himself along next to Alfred. He might not be able to stand, but by god he was going to wheel his own wheelchair. “Who’s over? One of Bruce’s night work friends?” By which he meant the Justice League. Not that he thought Bruce had been seeing much of the Justice League lately. Batman had gone almost totally solo.

“If only,” Alfred replied. “Our guest has refused to properly introduce himself, unfortunately, and is unlikely to do so until Master Bruce returns. Master Dick is downstairs keeping an eye on things.”

“That violent?”

“Potentially.”

Jason couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “And you’re bringing _me_ down there?”

“I trust Master Dick to keep the situation under control, physically speaking,” Alfred replied. “As I believe you do. I asked about the crutches since I believe it may prevent some problems further down the line. I am unsure how long this guest will be in the house. Or if he will remain a guest.”

He kept wheeling. A guest. As opposed to - what? A resident? “Is this your way of telling me Bruce has a bastard kid?” he asked.

“The DNA test results are pending,” Alfred replied.

Just as well Jason wasn’t on crutches, because he would have fallen over right then and there. Splat. Re-broken limbs. “You’re _serious_?”

“Quite,” Alfred said.

“And - the cave? How - ?”

“The lady our guest claims as a mother is well aware of Master Bruce’s night work. _Not_ Ms Kyle,” Alfred added before Jason could choke any further. “An older…former paramour.”

“You don’t like her,” Jason realised.

“My feelings are immaterial,” Alfred immediately responded, “and it would be dreadfully unfair of me to make our guest feel unwelcome due to his mother, especiallyunder the circumstances. Nevertheless, suffice it to say that there were and are good reasons why the lady in question is a _former_ paramour of Master Bruce’s.”

Translation: Alfred _really_ didn’t like this woman, whoever she was, and hadn’t been the least sorry to see the back of her. “What’d she do?”

“I will leave that to Master Bruce to explain, I think,” Alfred said. He glanced sideways at Jason. “While you may end up with another brother out of this, I do not think a stepmother is in the cards at this stage. I’ve called Master Bruce already. He’s on his way.”

Leave it to Alfred to pick out what was worrying Jason. Though that question about the crutches was strange. First impressions? Why on earth would it matter if Jason showed up in a wheelchair?

—

At least Alfred didn’t call back. Probably a good sign. Probably. He doubted that a seven-year-old, even a seven-year-old trained by the League of Assassins, could overpower Alfred or Dick. Certainly not fast enough to prevent either, or Jason, from contacting him somehow.

What was he going to find when he reached the cave? He’d been having nightmares, recently. They featured his children dead quite a bit. And Talia - he’d cared for Talia. They hadn’t broken up because he’d stopped caring for her. He still cared for her, despite his better judgment and what he knew to be irreconcileable differences. It was those differences, not the feeling, that ended the relationship.

What had Talia been telling the boy? If indeed he was also Bruce’s child.

Why had she hidden this from him? Seven years old. That meant he was born about when Bruce broke up with her. He hadn’t seen her in person for months before that. She’d been hiding her pregnancy even in the last months of their relationship, then. He understood that Talia might not have wanted to parent with him. He didn’t want to parent with her. But to not even let him _know -_

That was something he’d have to discuss with Talia. When he could contact her, when everything was sorted out.

He hoped he wasn’t heading back into some sort of trap. Or that this wasn’t some sort of trap for his children. The thought was a vise around his heart. Jason was more vulnerable than usual right now. Dick too, albeit in a different way.

There was no way he could drive faster while still maintaining a modicum of road safety.

A minor eternity later he pulled into the cave. Dick was not in immediate sight. Heart still pounding hard, Bruce made his way towards the computers. He pulled off his cowl as he went. What he’d lose in head protection, he’d gain in…he wasn’t sure what he’d gain. A less scared child, if he was anything like Dick or Jason.

There he was. Dick. Pacing around a small figure in cuffs, his face blank. He nodded when he saw Bruce and said, “Alfred’s gone to get Jason.”

Bruce nodded in return and moved around so he could see the boy better. He - he did look a lot like Bruce. He had Talia’s darker skin, though, and he could see her in the shape of his eyes and cheekbones.

“You can call your attack dog off,” the boy said. He had Talia’s inflections, too.

“Dick is a human being,” Bruce replied. He’d have to start as he meant to go on. “While you are in my house, you will treat him as a human being, and I expect you to treat him as a human being anyway. If I take the cuffs off, will you stay still?”

The boy’s gaze darted to Dick just briefly. “If he promises not to attack.”

Dick hissed out a breath. “You attacked me,” he said. “I defended myself.”

“Nobody will be attacking anyone,” Bruce said. “Physically or verbally. The cuffs?”

Still glaring, the boy turned slightly to allow Bruce access to his hands. Dick had cuffed him hands behind his back, which was only sensible, but which must have also hurt after a while. Not that the boy was showing it.

“What’s your name?” Bruce asked.

“Damian Wayne,” the boy said. With another glance at Dick, he put a slight but unmistakeable stress on _Wayne_.

“It’s nice to meet you, Damian,” Bruce said. “What brings you here?”

Now that, that had an effect. For a second the boy - _Damian_ \- lost his air of arrogance and seemed scared. “Mother wrote you a letter,” he said. “Here.”

Damian took a step forward. Dick’s attention palpably sharpened as Damian entered arm’s reach of Bruce. But it was only a letter. Expensive paper, slightly crumpled from being in a pocket. Talia’s handwriting on the outside. When he opened it, her favourite perfume was on the paper.

It started, _Beloved_.

“What does it say?” Dick asked.

“Trouble in the League of Assassins,” Bruce said, scanning through the contents. It was Talia’s writing style, too, and when it came to the matter of Damian, she referenced a truly unforgettable date. As proof of identity went, that was as much as he could do without forensics. He’d have to investigate Talia’s claims more specifically. He knew better than to simply take her at her word, and he didn’t doubt her capable of playing a long game. She would, if something she cared about was at stake. “She wants Damian to stay here for a while.”

 _A boy should know his father_ , Talia wrote. _I am sure you will see his worth. I have raised him to honour your family name as well as my own._

Not a word about Damian fitting in with the rest of the family. Not a word about hoping that he got to know his brothers.

Unsurprising. It might explain a lot, but unsurprising.

“Seriously?”

That was Jason’s voice. Bruce hadn’t even noticed him approach, and the wheelchair was hardly stealth transportation. He was perhaps somewhat distracted. More distracted, when young Damian turned a disdainful stare at Jason as well.

Bad signs.

For better or worse, Jason turned an equally disdainful glare back at Damian. It was probably better. Bruce _did_ admire Jason’s willingness to stand up for himself and others. Not to mention that if there was something Talia respected, and something she undoubtedly would have taught her son to respect, it was strength. “Alfred told me you had a kid,” Jason said, “but seriously. He looks like someone shrunk you.”

“No he doesn’t,” Dick said. "The eyes are..."

“Do not talk about me as though I weren’t here,” Damian said.

“Fine,” Jason replied, “if you don’t look at us with that sneer on your face.”

This was going well already. “Jason, this is Damian,” Bruce said. “Damian, this is Jason.”

“I know who he is. The cripple.”

Dick went absolutely, ominously still. Jason said, “Come over here and say that.” Bruce had to grab Damian before he could. That was a solid way to render discussions irretrievable - and worse, would likely result in someone getting hurt. Jason simply didn’t have the experience to see that Damian had been trained, far more seriously than either Bruce or Dick had ever trained Jason. Jason would regret the outcome. All the more because Dick would leap to his defence.

There was one way out of this, temporarily. Imperfectly. But a way to not finish this conversation with shouting or, god forbid, bloodshed. “Alfred.”

“Master Bruce?”

“Take Damian upstairs and start showing him around, will you?”

Alfred batted only the slightest of eyelids. If you didn’t know him, you’d miss it entirely. He stepped over to Damian, putting himself between the younger boy and the other two. From Dick’s frown, he’d realised. “If you’ll come this way, Master Damian,” he said.

Damian, thrown, looked at Bruce. “I think it’s a good idea,” Bruce said.

Alfred added, “I absolutely insist. I could not possibly leave you in any anxiety as to your phyiscal place in this house.”

One last nod from Bruce, and Alfred managed the butlering equivalent of hauling a guest away by their ear. More importantly, it gave Bruce at least a little space to try and calm his other two sons down.

Sure enough, as soon as Damian and Alfred were out of earshot, Dick made a hissing, deflating noise again and started pacing, but Bruce took that as a sign he was just that bit further away from violence. Jason, for his part, exhaled noisily, sunk back into his wheelchair, and said, “Wow, Bruce, I’ve never criticised your taste in girlfriends before, but that kid is an _ass_.”

“It’s…complicated,” Bruce said. How did he even explain this? “He’s young, and from what I know of his mother, he’s probably had a…difficult upringing, by our standards.”

“Worse than Dick’s?”

Bruce looked at his elder - eldest, and said, “Maybe not _worse_ \- but it would have more in common with Dick’s time at the Court than your childhood, yes.”

Dick went still again. For different reasons, this time, no doubt. Jason raised his eyebrows. “And…you had a girlfriend who’d raise her kid like that, why?”

He thought about how to say it. Hard to tell them, when he didn’t even know how he felt yet. “We hadn’t talked about children. Damian’s mother and I had a complicated relationship,” he said. “We were involved for a long time, off and on. We broke up permanently several years ago. Around the time Damian was born, I believe.”

Both his sons were clever. Both turned to him, understanding the implications of the timing. It was Dick, however, who said it. “Because of me?”

“No,” Bruce said. “It’s not your fault, Dick. It had nothing to do with _you_. We would have broken up over these issues anyway, when they came up, you understand me? What happened when I took you in revealed the problems, they didn’t cause them.” Irreconcileable differences.

The gutted expression on Dick’s face didn’t change, though. As with so many other things, Bruce didn’t know what he could do about that but show him otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and commenting!


	4. The Talon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: child sex abuse is alluded to this chapter.

“Oh, you’re back,” Alfred said when Bruce returned. Then the smell must have hit his nostrils, because the next thing he said was, “Good heavens.”

“I got delayed,” Bruce said.

“I gathered that from the fact you are several hours overdue, Master Bruce,” Alfred replied, standing well back. “Does this have anything to do with the complication you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Bruce said.

He walked around the car. The boy had gone still when they’d reached the cave. Underground again for him. At a guess, he was terrified that Bruce had brought him somewhere no different to his last - residence. Bruce would not, could not, call it a home. He opened the car door and made sure to step right back out of arm's reach.

“Master Bruce, what -“

“Hang on a second, Alfred.” He focused on the boy, rigid and motionless in the passenger seat. “It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you. The Court won’t find you here.”

What reserves of courage the boy had to draw on, Bruce didn’t know. God forbid he ever had to learn. But he slowly, hesitantly, left the car to stand straight before Bruce. There was something distant in his eyes. Behind him, Alfred stifled an alarmed sound.

“Do you want to go clean up?” Bruce asked. No response. Not a flicker, not a twitch. He tried again, still as gentle as he could be. Like the restraints, it went against everything in his soul to act like this boy’s captors, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t erase years worth of abuse in a night, and he really _did_ need to attend to basic hygiene. “Go get cleaned up. The showers are over there. Alfred will bring you some clothing.”

The boy did not precisely _relax_ , but he nodded. It was something. He took a few cautious steps in that direction.

“Go on,” Bruce said. “It’s all right.”

Once the boy was out of earshot, Alfred rounded on him. “What on earth are you thinking?” he said, gone quiet in anger. “That is a child, not a stray cat. I assume you have your reasons.”

“I found the Court of Owls,” Bruce told him. Said that bluntly, it sounded unbelievable. Bruce wasn’t sure that _he_ believed it. “He said he was the Talon. I couldn’t leave him there. How do you think the authorities will handle him? He’s not just traumatised, he’s _deadly_.”

“So naturally you brought him here. Where you, of course, have a great deal more emotional resources to deal with the problems such a child may pose, regardless of your capacity to defeat the boy in a brawl.”

“Yes, Alfred, I brought him here! I didn’t know what else I could do with him. I know he might, will, need things that I can’t provide, but I couldn’t just _leave_ him!”

“And then you couldn’t think what to do after that.” Alfred sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “It is possible my own fear for you is affecting my response. I apologise. I know you would not intentionally harm a child nor leave a child to be harmed. I’m just…concerned.”

“I know,” Bruce said. “But at least we can get him cleaned up and give him a hot meal first. Maybe calm him down a little. Just not dump him on social services without warning.”

“As long as we have some sort of plan,” Alfred said. “Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, Master Bruce, you are just as much in need of cleaning up as our guest. Assuming you do not want to use the showers yourself right now and risk frightening the young man, the hose is over there, and there is spare soap in the second cabinet from the stairs. I will do my best to salvage your suit, but it is likely we will have to make replacements for the soft components. I shall start work on the car as soon as I find the spare clothing and make up an extra dinner.”

That said, he went to work, and Bruce got started on the required cleaning-up. He didn’t dare strip all the way down. Just in case. Who knew what the boy had been through, or what he might read into from Bruce stripping down to bare skin. He could, however, take _most_ of the Batsuit off and hose himself down. He’d shower properly later.

He’d just finished a rather hasty scrub when he realised there was a small, silent figure lurking in the shadows not far from the door to the showers. A small, silent, carefully-watching figure, swathed in one of Bruce’s old sweatshirts. It came down to mid-thigh on the boy. No telling how long he’d been there.

There were no pockets in the sweatshirt. The boy was clutching a knife in each hand, held ready to defend himself.

Bruce wouldn’t give him a reason, if he could help it. Especially since he was no longer wearing any armour, and the boy was faster than a child had a right to be. “Hello again,” he said. Hands open and away from his sides, that was the way. No threat here. “Alfred’s gone to find you some food.”

The boy nodded, then hesitated. A flicker of fear crossed his face. “How do I earn it?” he asked.

“It’s a gift,” Bruce said. Fear of having to ask, or fear of what might be asked of him in order to eat? Both? He didn’t look underfed. One small mercy, but then, he would hardly be an effective assassin if he was constantly battling starvation. “You don’t earn it.”

Blue eyes narrowed. He nodded again. “I understand,” he said. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions, or even move. Not even to look around for Alfred. Just stood there, with every indication that he intended to wait indefinitely. His hands stayed on the knives.

“Would you agree to a blood test?” Bruce asked. “I did say I would try and find your name and your family. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Another lightning-fast flicker of emotion, there and gone. The boy didn’t say anything, but he hiked up the sleeve of the sweatshirt, baring an arm.

It looked like consent. Not the verbal affirmative Bruce might have felt more comfortable with, but how to say _I want you to say yes or no out loud_ without further pressuring him? If the fear before had been from asking - did he even dare tell anyone what it was he wanted?

Bruce slowly made his way over to the bench with the medical equipment, angling himself so the boy had a clear view of his hands and everything Bruce touched. Especially the syringe and needle. The boy shuddered but didn’t pull his sleeve back down. Or move his knives into a more threatening position.

Gently and quickly as he could, Bruce drew his guest’s blood. “I’ll run DNA and blood typing,” he said. “We’ll see if there are any matches in the system.”

The boy watched carefully as Bruce started the search running. It seemed the equivalent of avid interest, in a mentally healthier child. He might not say anything, but the boy clearly wanted to know either his name or his family, possibly both. Bruce would do everything he could to give the boy at least that much.

That would take time, though. What did Bruce do with the boy for the moment?

—

Talon decided it liked this cave better than the Labyrinth. This cave was warmer. Not so bright. Not so bare. It wasn’t cluttered, but it looked like someone worked there. The Batman. The Batman’s cave was much better than the Labyrinth. Its masters would punish it for the thought if they knew.

They would punish it for leaving anyway. When they found it. They would know that it had allowed the Batman to take it away.

Unless the Batman hid it. It didn’t know what the Batman might want in return. Its masters had told it that the Batman didn’t kill, and that was what Talon was for. Perhaps the Batman wanted Talon to kill on his behalf?

Perhaps the Batman wanted to hurt it. That was a possibility, and one that kept it holding its knives. It was the Batman’s enemy. It had attacked the Batman in the maze. If Batman was trying to lure it into a false sense of security, Talon would be ready. Talon would fight. Even in this clothing, which was strange and soft against his skin.

But the Batman had also promised to find Talon’s name. It had a name once. It saw its parents fall. It could remember being very small and very scared when it was brought to the Court. It could remember hating its masters, before it learned to obey. It didn’t remember fighting back, but it must have. It couldn’t remember getting all its scars.

There had been something before. It wanted to know what that before was. It missed -

It was not allowed to miss anything.

But it did, it thought mutinously. It hadn’t dared think such things for a long time. Not like this. He _did_ miss his parents.

The screen the Batman had started running showed pictures. Boys with dark hair and blue eyes. Talon wondered if he would recognise his own picture if he saw it.

There was movement over by one of the exits. The Batman’s - it didn’t know the hierarchy. It had to learn that much. This man was old, like many of its masters were old. Was the Batman more like it, then, taking orders from a master? But the old man was carrying a tray. It had a large bowl on it, and smaller bowls and spoons beside it.

Food. Like the Batman had said.

It could be poisoned. As Talon watched, the Batman served himself a smaller bowl from the larger, so the food itself wasn’t likely to be poisoned. The bowl itself, or the spoon, if they were trying to poison it. But there was no way Talon could know.

The Batman had said the food was a gift. Talon was very hungry. It would eat. And if it was poisoned, it would deserve it.

The older man served a second bowl. This one he offered to Talon. “If you’ll pardon me saying so, young man, you will find it easier to eat if you set down at least one of your knives. Easier still if you will set down both.”

Without looking away from the old man, Talon put down one knife and accepted the soup. It was hot, but it knew better than to show pain. Its mouth watered at the smell of chicken and vegetables. It drank half the bowl before it even thought again about poison or being attacked while it was vulnerable.

When Talon had finished, the old man held out an apricot.

“What do I need to do to earn it?” it asked again. It was worth the questions. It wanted the apricot. Its masters rewarded it with fruit for kills.

“It’s a gift,” the Batman said.

A second gift. It found the generosity suspicious. It shook its head. Even if they hurt it for refusing, it wasn’t _stupid_. Masters did not offer gifts so often.

The older man said, “I will trade you this apricot for the return of the bowl and the spoon.”

That was reasonable. Talon didn’t want to go into arm’s reach of the old man, but it would, and it would get the apricot in return. Acceptable. It did so, then ate the apricot before the old man decided he wanted more than just a bowl and a spoon. As soon as it was done, it picked its knife up again. It had lost most of them fighting the Batman in the Labyrinth and it didn’t like that.

“Perhaps some rest?” the old man said.

The Batman’s head jerked up. He looked at the old man. The old man looked at him too. It didn’t understand what was going on, but the old man said, “I shall get a cot set up down here directly.”

Keeping an eye on both the Batman, the old man, and the screen wasn’t easy. It had done harder things, though. Even though it felt tired and heavy from the food and the warmth. The old man put a cot against a good wall, one where two sides were defended and someone sleeping there still wouldn’t be boxed in if it had to run. The old man added two blankets and two pillows, more soft things than it could remember seeing in one place.

One was a deep shade of green. A second was heavy wool in a multi-coloured pattern it thought was called tartan. They both looked soft. It drifted over once the old man was done and poked at it. Yes. Soft. It sat down. It had been awake for a long time. If it was going to sleep, it might as well sleep on something soft.

Food. Blankets. It would be worth what its masters would do to it just to enjoy these things a little longer. Another mutinous thought. It hoped the Batman found out who it was before its masters took it back.

The blankets were warm too…

—

“How did you know?” Bruce asked.

Alfred sniffed at him. “If you’ll forgive me, Master Bruce, it did not take the world’s greatest detective to see how tired he was.”

Bruce fought the urge to walk over and pull the blankets up over the little assassin. He’d fallen asleep with knives still in hand, and in his sleep was still trying to press back against the wall. If they disturbed him, Bruce would bet money it would turn violent. And Alfred was right; the boy was obviously exhausted.

“You should take the opportunity to sleep as well,” Alfred continued. “I am alert enough to take a shift down here. I do not think our young friend should be left alone at the moment.”

It was a sign of his own fatigue that Bruce hadn’t thought of that. “You’re right,” he said. There were alarms. Alfred would use them if he needed them. “Just one last adjustment.” The searches were taking a while to run. So many missing children. He’d review the possibilities when he woke. Including the possibilities of what to do with the boy himself.

Once upstairs, the first thing on his agenda was to shower properly. He _hated_ sewers. And because Alfred must have been tired too, staying up worrying about Bruce, he set an alarm for four hours later, so he didn’t leave his butler minding a small but dangerously skilled and deeply traumatised assassin all night. He’d barely laid down when it went off again, and outside his bedroom windows, evening had turned to the dead of night.

Still no ideas on what to do with the boy. Bruce pondered it as he made his way back downstairs.

Downstairs was - surprisingly peaceful. All hell had not broken loose. Alfred was quietly working on disassembling the ruined Batsuit for components. “He’s still asleep,” Alfred said. “I believe your search found a few more possibilities.”

Bruce started flipping through them, ruling out possibilities as he went. Dark eyes, chronic health problems, several who had almost certainly been abducted by their biological parent - there.

Dark hair. Blue eyes. Parents killed. Was _that_ why the boy looked familiar?

He ran the DNA test against the crime scene samples from the dead couple and got his answer. “Found him,” Bruce said.

Alfred drifted over. “Richard Grayson,” he said. “The name sounds -“

“I was there that night,” Bruce said. “I gave him my coat.” Somewhere between the circus and the police station, Richard Grayson had vanished. Batman searched for him, of course he had, but the boy was gone, and crime in Gotham went on. He couldn’t solve every crime, he knew that. Even when failure left him with nightmares of his own parents’ murder. He had to keep going.

Only now, he’d _found_ Richard Grayson. Six years too late.

He looked over at the boy, still asleep in a curled-up little ball against the wall. Six years. Six years he’d been with the Court of Owls. Nearly half his life, more than half of what he would be able to remember. Bruce felt sick. “We’ll let him sleep as long as possible,” he said. He wanted to do some pure kindness for Richard. Something that wasn’t going to hurt him, even for his own good.

Letting him sleep as long as he wanted would have to do.

“Naturally. Growing boys need their sleep.”

“So do butlers. Your turn.”

Alfred bowed out. Bruce knew better than to think Alfred would get a full night’s sleep. No more than Bruce had.

In the meantime, now that he knew who Richard was, he needed to find out who had taken him in the first place. He needed to find the Court of Owls, and he needed to stop them from taking Richard again. As well as whatever other plans they might have.

Carefully, so as not to wake his guest, he edged around to his other workstation. The recordings and data from the previous night should be there, so he could look over the data from the Court’s maze with fresher eyes. Tracking down villains through their shell companies and property holdings might not strike fear into the hearts of criminals, but it was effective.

Unsurprisingly, Richard turned out to be a light sleeper. Barely ninety minutes after Bruce returned, one of his computers announced its search results with a soft tone, and the boy was upright, knife in hand, in an instant.

Heart climbing up his throat, Bruce said, “Careful there.”

Richard set his back to the wall and carefully looked around. Bruce could see the question, and so he also saw Richard bite down on it. He was definitely leaning towards the idea that Richard had been punished for asking questions.

“We’re in the cave below my home,” Bruce said, so that Richard didn’t have to ask. “I don’t think I introduced myself yesterday. My name is Bruce Wayne.”

“I am Talon,” the boy said. An introduction, of sorts.

Bruce inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I found the name you were given when you were born, if you want to know it.”

Richard sucked in a breath, then hastily schooled his expression. Bruce didn’t ask him to come closer, not with how he’d reacted to the prospect of approaching Alfred (and not when he was still clinging to his knives), so instead he enlarged his findings so they could be read from where Richard was standing.

“You told me you saw your parents fall,” Bruce said, gently. Horrible as the case was, he wanted Richard to know how his actions had helped Bruce find the information. “I found the case and used the DNA samples you gave me to confirm. Your name is Richard Grayson. Your parents’ names were John and Mary Grayson. You are fourteen years old, and before the Court of Owls took you, you were an aerialist at Haley’s Circus.”

“Richard Grayson,” Richard murmured. He pitched forward alarmingly for a second. “I don’t remember,” he said. “I don’t remember!”

Then he burst into tears. Deep, chest-tearing sobs that hurt to listen to. Richard cried, hunched over, face buried in his knees, well past all attempts to hide his distress.

Screw the knives. This was an injured child. Bruce abandoned the majority of his caution and approached, hands out, in case Richard wanted to reach back.

Somewhat to his surprise, Richard did reach back, grasping Bruce’s hand in a death grip. “I don’t remember,” he said, startling blue eyes tearful and desperate.

Bruce squeezed back, hoping that Richard wouldn’t take it as a threat or a punishment. “Well, Richard,” he said, “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so sliiiiiightly more than a fortnight there. But still on track! Thanks for reading and commenting!

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to part four! Please forgive any medical inaccuracies in advance. I'm sorry I didn't respond individually to your lovely comments on the last two chapters of part three, but I read them all, and believe me I am grateful. To the people who liked or bookmarked or left kudos as well.
> 
> I'm going to try and maintain a fortnightly schedule with this one. A little slower than I like, but hopefully it will let me update more regularly. Let's see how we go!


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